After his match winning innings of 92 and 152 against England in the 1st test, Kumar Sangakkara displaced Ricky Ponting from the number one position in ICC's rankings for test batsmen. Is he the best test batsmen in the world today? Arguably so and here's why.

After scoring the 152, Sanga became the first batsman to score over 150 in 4 consecutive tests - 200* and 222* against Bangladesh, 192 against Australia, and then the 152. Sir Don Bradman managed 3.

Prior to bullying the bengalis, Sanga had put the Kiwis to the sword late last year on his way to 100* and 156* in the 2 tests.

Trace back his scores and one sees that before touring New Zealand, Sanga had given a taste of what is to come during his test best majestic innings of 287 against South Africa in Colombo.

In his last 9 tests (14 innings), Sanga has scored 7 centuries and 2 fifties. Out of the 7 hundreds, 2 are above 150 and another 2 above 200! One of the 2 fifties is a 90 plus score.

Any doubt that he sits above all test batsmen? None whatsoever for me! Read on.

Out of his 16 test centuries, 5 are above 150 and 6 above 200!

Sanga has scored a 100 against every test playing country and apart from India, he has a 150 plus score against each one of them. He averages over 40.00 against every test playing country.

12 of his centuries have resulted in wins for Sri Lanka, while 1 in a draw. Only 3 of them have been scored in lost causes.

Take a look at Sanga's record when playing purely as a batsman rather than a wicketkeeper.(Read as M, I, Runs, Ave, 100s, 50s)

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Sangakkara's recent run of form is phenomenal, but his average is inflated by matches against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. If you take them out, his average when a specialist batsman drops to 81. Still amazingly good, but he's only had 16 Tests as non-wicketkeeper against teams that aren't Bangladesh or Zimbabwe. Jimmy Adams averaged 80.94 after his first 16 Tests. I'm not saying that Sangakkara's average will drop to near 40 like Adams' did, just that it's a bit early to proclaim him "King".

He's certainly the form batsman of the moment, but I'd guess that he and Ponting will swap the number one ranking a few times over the next couple of years.

U have a very good point David. I surely didn't take the runs against Zim and Bang into account. Definitely he still has a long way to go - he hasn't played as much as the pontings, laras, and sachins.

But one thing which i found remarkable was the fact that he has a brilliant record against each test playing country. I think that is unmatchable. Almost all the great batsmen have 1 test nation as the achilles heel.

Well said Uncle J - right now he's #1 and thus the King.

I don't remember a contemporary batsman who has had phenomenol test runs in their last series against Australia, South Africa, and England.

he is the best now and you gotta leave it at that. There are many greats that have inflated averages because of high averages versus Zim and Bang - but as Q pointed out Sangakkara has been scoring runs against everybody!

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